Parking your car in Switzerland

Parking your car in Swiss towns and cities

Parking in smaller towns is mostly not a problem. Traffic can be complex in the city centers of larger towns though. Streets are narrow, and there's lots of traffic and lots of one way streets. Parking can be hard to find. There's a good alternative: drive to a nearby town or suburb and take the train from there.

Free parking

Free parking space can mostly be found in the smaller towns or suburbs, for example at shopping centers, hotel car parks (for guests only) or in the street. Also there's time limited free parking blue zones.

Parking in blue zones with a parking disc

Blue zones are marked with blue lines and signs. You can park there for free for one hour, if you use a parking disc. The disc must be used Monday through Saturday between 8:00 AM and 7:00 PM. Note that exceptions may apply, so do note the local signs.

Make sure to have a valid parking disc in your car. It must be blue and at least 11 cm wide and 15 cm high. Other versions are not valid. The disc can be used in other countries as well, e.g. in Germany. Rental cars should have a disc on board.

How to use a parking disc in Switzerland:

1. Indicate your arrival time: rotate the disc to the next half hour. For example: if you arrive at 10:10 AM, rotate it to 10:30 AM.

2. Place the disc on the dashboard and make sure it's clearly visible from the outside.

3. Depart no later than one hour after the indicated arrival time. In this example, you should depart at 11:30 AM at the latest. So, depending on your arrival time, your maximum allowed parking time could be 1h29.

Walking back to your car to change the arrival time in order to park longer is not allowed.

Paid parking

Paid parking is the norm in Switzerland, especially around popular places like rail stations, hotels and town centers. Even as a hotel guest, you often need to pay for parking separately. Count on CHF 10 to 50 per day. Parking in the larger cities is quite expensive: up to CHF 4 per hour.

Paying is done in several ways:

• hotel guests can pay for their parking costs during the check-out procedure;
• in public parking garages you'll find machines. Before you leave, you'll have to enter the parking ticket you received when driving in, and you'll pay in cash or with debit/credit card;
• on many parking lots you'll find parking metres. The older versions require Swiss coins. Many are digital though, allowing you to enter the number of your parking lot and pay in cash or by debit/credit card;
• a growing number of parking lots can be paid with mobile apps, linked to your credit card or bank account. You'll have to enter your parking lot and parking duration. Examples of apps used in Switzerland are Park Now, ParkingPay, EasyPark, Sepp and Twint.

Parking at rail stations

You can park your car at over 500 parking lots near rail stations. Most of them are paid. You can use the SBB website or download the SBB P+Rail app in order to select a location and to pay in advance by credit card. You can choose between day passes and payment per hour. Note that many, but not all rail parking facilities are included in the app yet, and that advance payment for any location is not the same as making a reservation. So payment does not guarantee that parking space will actually be available.

Monthly or annual subscriptions for specific locations are available too. You'll have to arrange for them at the station's ticket counter.